Computer Science Superheroes

Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace, often referred to as the first computer programmer, is most notable for her Notes on Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine which contained what people comsider to be the first computer programming language. It began in 1843 when she was asked by Italian mathematician Luigi Federico Menabrea to translate his article- "Notions sur la machine analytique de Charles Babbage" ("Elements of Charles Babbage's Analytical Machine"). As Ada translated the article, she also created fabulous annotations on the proposed Analytical Machine. She was able to describe how the Analytical Machine could be used to compute Bernoulli Numbers and became the first to realize the full potential of the machine. In later years, Ada's contributions were remembered, and the early programming language "Ada" was named after her. Additionally, the second Tuesday in October is now Ada Lovelace Day.

Larry Page
Larry Page is most famously known for founding Google, the most widely used search engine in the world which is used by over 1 billion people! This started when Larry Page met Sergey Brin in Stanford's Ph. D. program. Larry wanted to explore the inner workings of the World Wide Web for his dissertation, so he and Sergey created a combined reseach project titled "BackRub". This led to the development of the PageRank Algorithm. Larry and Sergey soon realized this algorithm could be utilized to develop an extremely powerful search engine. In 1997, they registered the domain name "Google.com", and officially incorporated their business in 1998. In the year 2000 Google began selling text-based advertisements based on searched keywords which was able to deliver ads which were directly related to the interests of their users. Over the years, Google continued to grow through acquisitions of software and hardware companies to become what they are today.

Guido Van Rossum
The Python programming language is very popular among many coders today, but it didn't always exist, until Guido Van Rossum came along. Guido is the man who developed the Python coding language which helps developers around the world create computer programs much more efficiently and easily. That's not all though. Later in his career while working for Google, Guido developed a code review system named "Mondrian", which was coded in Python, and helped the company operate at a higher level. Guido also worked at Microsoft and Dropbox as a high-level developer, and is recognized as a distinghuised engineer.